When you start your own online store, you are not limited to targeting an audience in a specific region. Virtually everyone can find you from anywhere, no matter whether or not they are physically in the same place as you. You can reach potential customers all over the world, which is great for expanding your audience and followers.
But selling to your customers in different countries comes with more responsibilities. And there are things you have to consider when selling on-demand products internationally that don’t apply to local customers.
When you start your own online store, you are not limited to focus on an audience in a specific region. Virtually anyone can find you from anywhere, no matter whether or not they are physically in the same place as you. You can reach potential customers all over the world, which is great for expanding your audience and followers.
But selling to your customers in different countries comes with more responsibilities. And there are things you have to consider when selling on-demand products internationally that don’t apply to local customers.
Do you need a partner to handle the production and logistics of your business?
Do you want to reach new horizons, but you’re a bit lost? Don’t worry, we’re going to talk about all this in this article so you can sell to your customers wherever they are.
The first thing you need to do is to understand your current customers and your target market. Do you have a lot of orders coming from overseas customers? Do you want to reach more people outside your country and explore new markets?
If you have a limited number of international orders or are not particularly interested in entering markets located abroad, the time you have to spend on accommodating your international customers should be more limited.
Know your handling and shipping times
When you’re calculating how long it will take your customers to receive their orders, there are two elements you need to consider: Printful’s handling times and how long it will take to ship.
Printful can take anywhere from 2 to 5 business days to process your products. Many of them are processed in 3 business days.
After that, you also have to calculate the speed of shipping. International orders take longer to process than orders that are handled and shipped within the same country. Therefore, orders may take longer to reach your customers depending on the shipping options you offer.
We live in a time where Amazon delivers orders within 2 hours and therefore, people expect their products to arrive quickly. The more experienced online shoppers may know that they will have to wait a little longer if they order products that come from far away. This is especially true for customized, printed-on-demand items. However, you won’t always find such patient customers.
It’s best to give your buyers realistic expectations and be honest about how long their order will take by communicating this to them at all times.
Set your currency and payment methods
With Printful you can set your store’s default currency the way you want it. If most of your customers are in Europe, you can charge them in Euros, but if they are in another market you can charge them in any of the many currencies we support: USD, EUR, GBP, MXN, NOK, SEK, among others.
Therefore, once your order is processed, you can pay Printful for their work in the currency of your choice. To customize your default currency always remember to go to Control Panel > Billing > Billing Methods.
Remember that Printful will charge you for the order once your customer has placed the order. So it is important that you have a payment method set up in the Billing section of your account.
How to manage your international shipments
International shipments usually take longer to arrive and your customers will notice this, as it will take longer to receive their orders. But with a partner who has production and logistics centers close to your customers, the time will be shorter.
In any case, don’t forget to always tell your customers what they can expect from the service you offer.
To make sure you don’t miss anything, we’ll tell you a little more about international shipping below.
International shipping rates
An unexpectedly high shipping price can be a major reason for your customers to abandon the cart without making a purchase. According to Statista (ENG), 49% of shoppers say unexpected costs are the top reason for not shopping at a store.
International shipping rates can be more expensive than domestic shipping rates. This depends on whether you offer flat rates or live rates, which shipping companies you work with, or which method your customers choose.
Flat rates remain fixed depending on the product category, quantity and destination. If you want to know the cost of these rates for a specific product, go to the product page and click on the Shipping tab.
If you offer live rates, shipping may be more economical. Live rates calculate the shipping price for the carriers you choose based on the size and weight of the shipment.
These rates are only available for some of our integrations:
- Shopify Advanced plan users.
- Users of other Shopify plans who request live rates for their stores for $20/month
- WooCommerce users
- Users of Ecwid’s Venture, Business and Unlimited plans
- Custom stores created through our API
- Manual orders (not synchronized)
- Orders placed from our website
Order tracking
If you use flat rates in your store, we will automatically ship your orders with the cheapest shipping available at the time the order is placed.
For international orders, this will most likely be a slower, untracked shipping option. So, if an order is lost, there is no way to track it.
Printful will reship orders that are lost in transit at no extra charge, but keep in mind that such incidents could delay the time it would take for customers to receive their orders.
If you offer live shipping rates, your customers will be able to choose which method they want to use and will have the option to select a trackable carrier.
However, be aware that some carriers only offer tracking until the order arrives in the destination country. Once it has been accepted at the border, it does not tell you exactly where in the country it is.
Take into account the format of the address
It is essential that the address on each order is correct and properly formatted. Otherwise, it is possible that the order will not arrive.
For example, to ship to Mexican addresses, you must specify data such as the colony or the state in which the recipient of the shipment is located. If not specified, the order may easily be lost.
Differences in markets
Have you decided to sell on several marketplaces but they are too different to set the same price on all of them?
If you have Shopify’s advanced plan, you can enable Shopify markets. A tool that allows you to adapt parts of your store to the international markets you’re targeting without having to create a separate Shopify store for each one.
So you can adapt product prices separately and make the appropriate adjustments for specific countries and regions.
This functionality is very interesting for large sellers who aim to build stores for different countries, as it allows you to adapt them to each country’s target with ease.
Don’t forget about customs fees!
One of the problems your international customers may face is customs. They may have to pay a specific customs fee when placing an order in your online store.
This depends entirely on the destination country and is out of Printful’s control, as we cannot mark orders as gifts (in some countries, gifts between individuals are exempt from customs duties) or fail to declare the actual value of the gifts.
Some countries impose customs fees on orders valued at less than a certain price, while others may charge extra handling fees. In the end, it all depends on where your customer is located.
To keep these types of fees in check, we always recommend that you add products to your store that are available in the region where you will be selling.
For example, if you are selling in the European Union, take a look at the products that are available in our Latvia or Spain centers. There will not be any customs charges for them as they are handled within the same region.
If on the other hand you sell worldwide and there are some products that are not handled in some regions, to avoid surprises it is a good idea to inform your customers that they may have to pay customs fees.
You can write a notice specifying that the order may have customs fees to appear during the checkout process.
